December is indeed a busy month for everyone and the same speaks for myself during ’tis season. I have to rush for drawings to be issued and tons of shop drawings to comment before I go off and celebrate holidays, not to mention the almost every night shopping for presents. I did not imagine that shopping would be a chore not just destressing and fun activity. I have to shop and buy gifts for families and friends and most especially for Danna’s birthday.
These are the gifts i personally wrapped. Oh by the way you have to include wrappers and gift tags along with your budget. You are lucky if the store where you bought goods has paper bags and that would mean that you don’t have to individually wrap the gifts. In my case, i liked wrapping gifts so i just kept the paper bags.
It seems that i have searched the entire stretch of malls along Orchard road just to find bits and pieces for Danna’s Mickey and Minnie mouse themed party.
And so the list goes on and i have to put up a party along this season when I have lots of expenses. I have to think out of the box and ta dah, why did I not consider DIY earlier. That could have saved me hours of loooong search for affordable but chic stuffs for her birthday. It is always an advantage being creative especially when you have to work on a budget.
Useful tools are important as they will make things much eaiser. Some of those I used are:
- Double sided tape of 2 sizes, 1/4″ and 1/2″ thick.
- A pair of scissors
- Stapler and staple wires
- Scotch tape and dispenser
- Cutter
- Cutting mat
- Steel ruler
These are the DIY stuffs I prepared
- Popcorn containers– bought a pack of 100pcs plastic containers for $5.70. Covers are sparately sold at $3+++ (I can’t remember the exact amount). I then printed mickey and minnie mouse heads on top of the cover and used them as popcorn containers. I considered buying the ready made popcorn but buying the microwavable packs is a lot more cheaper.
- Personalized Chocolates– purchased small bars of chocolates (in strawberry, almond, mocha and dark choc flavor) at $5 for 10pcs. I designed Danna’s personalized chocolate wrappers (a variety of 4 designs for each flavor) and replaced the original wrapper.
- Prizes for Parlor games-this is a bit too much coz we can just hand down these prizes but keeping on Danna’s birthday theme is so much fun. Black and red polka dots wrapper matched with gift tags and ribbons.
- Cupcake toppers– my sister bakes so I just need to make these cupcake toppers. I printed mickey and minnie mouse heads on 250gsm matt paper and put wooden toothpicks at the back with double adhesive tape.
- Paper bags– I have irregular sized prizes to be given away like purses, stress balls, sweets and others so i gotta have paper bags to neatly pack them. These are my DIY paper bags. Those with Mickey mouse heads are for boys and and Minnie mouse are for girls.
- Extra bags– these white paper packets are bought at $2 for 50pcs. These bags are for those who want to take away sweets.
- Biscuit sticks with dio– Found these biscuit sticks with chockate dip at $8 for a bag of 25. I just put the Mickey and Minnie heads on top of the wrappers using double sided tape.
- Lollipops– these lollipops are cute and I just covered the original stand with white 250gsm paper and added the Mickey & Minnie cutouts.
- Mickey and Minnie mouse balloons
- Mickey and Minnie mouse stuff toys
- The birthday cake– this is a combined effort of my sister, bro-in-law, nieces, my husband and me. We made this cake! It’s not perfect but the effort is all worthy
- Minnie mouse necklace- 22k necklace with Minnie mouse pendant. I saved to buy her this on her special day but unfortunately she was not able to wear it coz she is a pulling it out so we have to take it off from her.
We blew off a successful party for Danna Halliah and it seems rewarding seeing her happy smiles and giggles!
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